The Problem with thinking men can be more subversive than women

Published on 22 November 2016

words Amrou Al-Kadhi
illustration Lily Goodchild

[V]ictoria Sin is one of my favourite people in London. Part of a growing scene of biologically female drag queens (i.e. women performing and deconstructing their femininity through drag), Victoria’s performances critique mainstream representations of femininity, but also the ways femininity is performed by some male drag queens. Here’s an example of why I find her work so transgressive –

At a recent LGBTQI+ club night, Victoria was a billed performer among male drag artists (who were performing lip syncs and dance routines as you might expect). And finally, it was Victoria’s turn to put on a show. Arriving on stage in a pink ballroom gown, bejewelled platform heels, and drag make-up that could surpass Ru Paul’s most skilled of craftswomen, Victoria’s performance was a little different – she sat on a chair, and simply drank a glass of milk. Taking her time, and basically ignoring the audience waiting for something to happen, the sheer mundanity of Victoria’s deadpan performance was the most subversive event that night. Why so?

Well, it sometimes doesn’t take much for male drag performers to secure audience approval. I’ve seen male queens with merely a bit of eyeliner, any sort of wig, and one item of “feminine” clothing win the whoops of club crowds for a few simple dance moves. Now, I’m also a professional drag performer, so don’t want this to come across as an attack on UK cis-male drag queens (of which many are sensational and sensitively celebrate femininity). However, I’m often disappointed by how a lazy gesture towards femininity from male queens– a bra, some lipstick –without a reflection or interrogation into the constructs of femininity, suffices for an audience to celebrate this performer as “transgressive.”

Let’s think about Victoria’s “milking it” performance within this context. In enacting an everyday activity on stage in high drag, Victoria opens up a question: if a man can get celebrated for their “femininity” through a tokenistic gesture, then why is femininity performed by women not given the spotlight. When I speak to Victoria, she tells me: ‘being a woman, I perform feminine labour everyday, the emotional labour and violence that comes with how people treat what they see as feminine presenting people in an everyday context and how it is policed on our bodies. I do this shit EVERY DAY, and often when cisgender men perform femininity on a stage – sometimes actually in a quite misogynistic and lazy way – they are much more readily celebrated.’

In transforming her already “female” body into an exaggerated image of femininity on her own terms, Victoria’s performances demand we watch her do nothing. For she is highlighting that the daily performance and labour of being a woman in our society needs recognition too.

Now a counter-argument might be that the male queen’s subversion of his gender “norms” is what makes his actions ultimately more transgressive. However, it cannot be denied that in our cultural landscape, men are more regularly congratulated for breaking the rules than women are. Images that we associate with queer counter-culture often have men at the centre. For instance, Glastonbury Festival’s “queer” venue NYC Downlow almost always uses (muscular)-men dancing outside, gesturing with feminine signifiers to hint at the venue’s counter-cultural status. But inherent in the imagery is the male body wearing feminine signifiers. But why is this image so immediately perceived as “cool” and “progressive”? It’s because masculinity is so systemically engrained as being the cultural ideal – and is so tied to Capitalist visions of success – that any sign of a man rejecting his entitled masculinity is congratulated above everything else: ‘how brave you are man, for turning your back on the glory of masculinity, even just a little bit!”

But in our culture, how often do we congratulate women when they reject femininity? Hardly ever. And for performing the daily labour of being a woman? Again – it’s invisible. You know, in researching this article, my YouTube trudging brought me to a drag queen who illuminated my concerns. A man wearing a tube top, skirt, heels and a mere bit of lipstick, lip-syncing to her own song that repeated, “I’m a slut!” over and over. And the crowd were going wild. Why is it that a man doing this so easily gives him the medal of subversion, whilst a woman doing this might cause her to be shamed, even attacked?

Here’s my gripe. We have culturally moved past – *fingers crossed* -a man loosely exploiting signifiers of femininity for him to be deemed “progressive”. So why are we so ready to celebrate it? Well, since the meteoric success of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, drag has quickly been assimilated into mainstream culture. And in hetero-normative spaces – where audiences aren’t as well versed in queer politics- a mere “nod” to transgression is often enough. And this can sometimes lead to problematic politics. At a recent Sink The Pinkevent (who have some PHENOMENAL queens like Rodent De Cay), I watched a group of majority male queens arrive on stage in monastic habits, only to rip them off, some revealing their male bodies, and shout ‘FUCK RELIGION!” The action received thunderous applause from the 2,000 strong audience – a large proportion of whom were straight – because of its “transgressive” implications. But I couldn’t nudge the feeling that the superficial “subversion” clouded potential insults to queer people of faith, of which many might have been present. And as we’re seeing in France, secularism is often used to oppose religious minorities.

It is this lazy semblance of transgression that LGBTQI+ communities need to address. As Victoria raised to me, it’s just like “when a man gets so congratulated for being a feminist in the media”, or “when a white person is seen as a hero for standing up for black rights when they are only repeating what BLM activists have already said many times over.” We must all make a fervent effort never to marginalise the oppressed, and unduly take credit for the labour they perform on a daily basis.

So as a male queer performer thinking about femininity, it is my firm intention to work on some things I’ve been lazy with.

They are: 1) to open up the forum for female/queer/intersectional voices in drag. 2) To upliftingly explore femininity with vigorous attention to detail (and never to exploit). The way I try to do this is by finding what I love about Middle-Eastern femininity, and to empower it with passionately constructed costumes/make up/routines. And finally: to CONSTANTLY check my male privilege whilst working in an often political, beautiful art form.

Amrou Al-Kadhi

Follow Amrou @Glamrou and visit his website here. Lily Goodchild is an artist who you can follow here.